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“History is indeed little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind”

…Edward Gibbon, of “Always scribble, scribble, scribble”- and “Decline & Fall”-fame once… scribbled in his damn thick book. It might be a coincidence that I grew up with a language that brought forth the word “Schadenfreude”, describing the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. However, I found it to be rather pleasurable to collect and retell especially the follies of mankind committed over the last couple of thousands of years, reflect on how we think it was, on how I believe it might have and sometimes on how it should have been. With a touch of irony and, sometimes, a dash of Schadenfreude. Along with little tales about my favourite pieces of art and literature, these stories get told on the anniversary of the day they had happened, once upon a time. I started telling these tales as a microblogging project on Mother Google her Network - my personal nom de guerre for Google+ - back in 2012 with the motto: “Blood and thunder, artsy things, curiosities and lots of ships“ and, finally, they grew into a full-fledged blog, the one you are reading just now.

What you might expect here at the “Once upon a time” blog… Usually, the posts turn on history, often military history, from antiquity to the dawn of the 20th century and everything an armchair sailor can come up with. Fine arts with pretty much the same foci during the said period as well as Mythology. Literature with a heavy focus on the 19th and early 20th century and silver screen adaptions. The dark and macabre, vampires, ghosts and ghoulies, the plain fantastic, the Byronic tradition in Europe, dandyism as well as Thomas Mann, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. And besides that I currently collect curiosities online, often with a touch of Steampunk and exhibit them in my virtual Wunderkammer, an online cabinet of curiosities.

Speaking of what. I don’t discuss politics on the Internet. There is a legend from the beginning of the Great War: The German High Command cabled to their allies in Vienna: “The situation is serious but not hopeless!” and some wisecrack in Vienna cabled back: “No. The situation is hopeless but not serious.” That pretty much sums it up. ‘nuff said.

The same is true for religion. Although I am willing to discuss religion from a historical point of view, I am not interested to hear people’s personal persuasions on god(s) or atheism. If you are interested in my opinion – read The Brothers Karamazov. It’s all in there.

And now I give you joy of reading my little tales here and hope you find them as much fun to read as I had writing them.

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13 August 1762, Spanish Havana surrendered to a large British invasion force under General George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, after two months of siege.

"It would require a greater philosopher and historian than I am to explain the causes of the famous Seven Years' War in which Europe was engaged; and, indeed, its origin has always appeared to me to be so complicated, and the books written about it so amazingly hard to understand, that I have seldom been much wiser at the end of a chapter than at the beginning“ (William Makepeace Thackeray “The Luck of Barry Lyndon”)

It was a world war. Quite in contrast to the other conflicts after the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, the Cabinet Wars fought for minor territorial gains and strategic advantages on isolated theatres with a minimum of civilian suffering, at least on paper, the Seven Years’ War meant carnage from the Ohio Valley, India and Central Europe to the Russian border, involving all of the Old World’s powers, gathered either i…

16 July 1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” (The Abduction from the Seraglio) premiered at the Vienna Burgtheater with the composer conducting.

“All our endeavour ... to confine ourselves to what is simple and limited was lost when Mozart appeared. Die Entführung aus dem Serail conquered all, and our own carefully written piece has never been so much as mentioned in theater circles.“ (Goethe)

It’s not quite without irony that Mozart’s opera about hareem fantasies and lustful Turks premiered on the anniversary of the Tyrkjaránið, the Turkish abductions in Iceland. 155 years before, a flotilla of Atlantic-going Barbary pirate xebecs under the renegade Dutch privateer Murat Reis, née Jan Janszoon of Harlem, raided in the far north and herded together a couple of hundreds of islanders and carried them away to be sold on the slave markets of North Africa and the Middle East. Similar slave catching raids took place in Ireland, Murat Reis’ Sallee Rovers even establ…

28 September 1921, the Austro-Hungarian socialite Princess
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were carried out to the letter including an attempt at and refusal of
reconciliation. The ladies engaged and, after a few trifling feints and
thrusts, a wild slash from the princess brought about a light flow of blood
from the countess’ nose. Seeing the injury she caused, the shocked princess, in
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the countess lunged and pierced the princess through her right forearm. The
sight of the ensuing blood caused the respective seconds to faint. The footmen
and coachmen, who had been ordered to stand some distance away with their backs
toward the action, heard the cries and ran toward the women to render aid.
Baroness Lubinska, ho…

5 August 1716, during the Austro-Turkish War of 1716-1718, the Austrian military genius Prince Eugene of Savoy decisively defeated an outnumbering Ottoman army under Grand Vizier Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha at the Battle of Petrovaradin.

“The Prince exposed himself to a great extent … and was in the greatest of dangers to get sabred or captured by the Turks” (Anonymous Austrian participant of the Battle of Petrovaradin, 1716)

Princess Palatine Elisabeth Charlotte, Liselotte von der Pfalz, was usually quite spot-on in her assessment of her fellow players at the court of the Sun King. In her own, inimitable down-to-earth manner, full of heart-warming common sense. Once she was rather mistaken, though. An “uncleanly and very debauched boy”, she wrote about the third youngest of Olympia Mancini, Countess Soissons’ eight children. The neglected, wraithlike, smallish son of Louis XIV’s poisonous mistress would never get anywhere, the worldly-wise princess concluded. The Sun King intended the la…

10 July 1790, During the climax of the Russo-Swedish War, the Battle of Svensksund ended with a nearly complete Swedish victory in one of the largest naval engagements ever fought. “Different Kinds of Arms are required in a Battle by Land, but many more in an Action by Sea, and also Machines and Engines like those used in the Attack or Defence of Places. What can be more terrible than a Sea Fight, in which both Fire and Water both unite for the Destruction of the Combatants” (Flavius Vegetius: “De Re Militari”)

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